


after the bombs

by alesford



Series: our family of choice [21]
Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Alcohol as a Coping Mechanism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Families of Choice, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mentions of Everybody Else - Freeform, Rated for Language and Mentions of Violence, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, light fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-14
Updated: 2018-09-14
Packaged: 2019-07-12 02:58:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15986174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alesford/pseuds/alesford
Summary: Nobody would say that Wynonna Earp doesn’t know how to cope.They just wouldn’t say that she knows how to copewell.Especially when she drives out to the outskirts of town with a bottle of whiskey, a box of ammo, and a long-standing quarrel with theWelcome to Purgatorysign.A follow-up to‘driving away from the wreck of the day’.





	after the bombs

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Louhaught](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Louhaught).



> Dear Louhaught,
> 
> Thank you for staying with me on this journey since the beginning. I always appreciate your thoughtful comments.
> 
> Sincerely,  
> newt

 

**after the bombs**

_and after the bombs subside_  
_and this long, low campaign_  
_calls it good for the night_

 

-

 

Nobody would say that Wynonna Earp doesn’t know how to cope.

  
They just wouldn’t say that she knows how to cope _well._

 

What do they know about _coping?_ They’re the ones who have been living in a town called _Purgatory_ for god’s sake and pretending like it isn’t Sunnydale 2.0. Going about their stupid days denying that everybody knows that it wasn’t _coyotes_ that turned four of Bob’s goats inside out. Acting like they aren’t aware that it’s the goddamn Earps that have made the place safer in the last decade of raining shit sandwiches.

  
Asshats.

  
Wynonna’s grip tightens around the bottle of bottom-shelf Varmint that she’s got stashed in a wrinkled brown paper bag. Not that it matters out here in the middle of flippin’ nowhere. She’s got the tailgate of her new truck lying flat and her ass is firmly planted on its edge. She idly swings her booted feet and takes an unhealthy swig of alcohol.

  
The early afternoon air smells like leather and gunpowder and cheap whiskey.

  
The hand not clutching one lifeline clings to another. Good ol’ Peacemaker, testy bitch that she is. Still putting down demons and taking names, even after a century of all the fuck-ups who failed to break the curse and the one who finally managed to beat it. There’s always been more to the Ghost River Triangle than just Wyatt’s seventy-seven outlaws.

  
She’s seen that shit firsthand and she’s not just thinking about Bob’s stupid goats.

  
Wraiths that boil men from the inside out. Hellhounds that rip limbs from bodies. Giant raven bird things that kidnap children. A moose eagle monster that bashed in skulls of campers like somebody swinging a sixteen pound bowling ball, going for one hell of a strike.

  
She’s witnessed death more than any sane person ever should. She recites the names of the people she couldn’t save like a cursed prayer before bed on the night’s that she actually sleeps.

 

Fish. Levi. Shorty. Eliza. Kate. Mama. Willa. Daddy.

 

She’s seen broken bodies and bodies rent apart, some by bludgeons and some by blades and some by good old fashioned twisting and tearing of muscle and bone and sinew. She’s seen blood spilled and flesh scorched. Death riding in on a horse with no qualms about ruining lives and families.

 

All the worthless slaughter. Innocent or not, it sucks.

 

Wynonna is no stranger to the darkest shitholes out of which the worst of the worst crawl. Doesn’t matter if they’re ordinary shitheads or demonic shitheads or even angelic shitheads. A shithead is a shithead is a shithead.

  
She takes another healthy pull from the bottle and doesn’t even feel the burn at the back of her throat.

  
She sits on the tailgate of her truck and aims Peacemaker at creepy Cindy on the _Welcome to Purgatory_ sign. It’s like ten years ago all over again. More than.

  
Crap. She’s almost forty.

  
Another glug.

  
Her thumb cocks the hammer of the six-shot revolver, freshly reloaded with six shiny bullets from the box that she pilfered from the weapon locker of the sheriff’s department.

 

(She pretends that she doesn’t know that Nicole buys extra boxes of .45 ammo just for her.)

 

Aim. Inhale. Exhale. Pull. Boom.

  
Peacemaker still refuses to put a hole between little Cindy’s eyes and the bullet ricochets off the signpost instead. She cocks the hammer again. Fires.

  
Gunshot after gunshot after goddamn gunshot.

  
One left in the chamber.

  
Five shots. Five shotgun blasts.

  
Her ears still ring with the sound of blood roaring in her ears. Her heart still stutters in a panic. Her breath still catches in fear.

  
Honestly, her memory of that afternoon is fuzzy at this point even if it was less than a week ago. Adrenaline kicked in and she ran towards the danger like the crazy chick with a gun that she is, ignoring the shouts of Nicole’s deputy sheriff and stupid Lonnie.

  
Lonnie who left Nicole inside with a rookie flatfoot and a madman with a semi-automatic shotgun. Fucking Lonnie.

 

(She doesn’t punch him later. She doesn’t punch him because she knows that _Sheriff Haught_ told him to go because she’s a colossal idiot with a fucking penchant for self-sacrifice.)

 

She ran into that house with Peacemaker drawn and she found a crime scene straight out of an awful snuff film. She only has a vague recollection of what she said and did. It’s fuzzy at its edges like a dream turned nightmare. She doesn’t remember it clearly.

  
The things she does remember are these:  
  
_A blood-soaked yellow comforter._  
_Dolls’ lips against her forehead._  
_Pancakes._  
_Nicole hunched over, bowed by grief._  
The lies she told her sister.  
  
_Feeling entirely inadequate to help her best friend, her family through one of the shittiest days of her life._

 

Fish. Levi. Shorty. Eliza. Kate. Mama. Willa. Daddy.

 

Except she knows it isn’t just the dead that she’s failed.

  
Wynonna thinks of all the people she’s hurt through all the years of her sorry life.

 

Gus. Nedley. Dolls. Jeremy. Doc. Nicole. Waverly.

  
Alice.

 

What does it say about a person when the people that you’ve hurt most in life are family?

  
What does it say when you’d rather drown in a bottle of crap whiskey than deal with it like a normal, high-functioning adult?

 

Wynonna Earp knows how to cope.

  
She just doesn’t know how to cope well.

 

(Sometimes she slips back into this well-worn skin of self-destructive tendencies. Wears the shell of her twenty-seven old self, reluctant and resentful and really fucking drunk more often than not. Sometimes she forgets how things are different now.

  
She isn’t alone anymore.

  
She doesn’t have to be lonely.)

 

She lifts the bottle to her lips and gulps down enough whiskey to feel the burn once more. By the weight of it in her hand, it’s already half empty and she’s only halfway through her self-pity party, attendance uno. She sets the bottle beside her, raising the Colt Buntline again and holding it with two hands instead of one when she fires the last round.

  
The bullet meets the space between creepy Cindy’s eyes but it doesn’t pierce the sign. No, because it’s a goddamn sentient gun with magical powers and so the bullet ricochets back towards her.

  
She’s swallowing a mouthful of dirt, having launched herself off the tailgate to hit the ground just as she heard the shatter of glass. She rolls over onto her back. Whiskey dribbles over the edge of the back of her truck.

  
Wynonna glares at the gun still in her hand. “Fuck you, too,” she mutters and shoves it back into the holster on her hip. She stays where she is, lying on the dusty gravel, grass, and dirt, and she closes her eyes.

  
The world spins. Her blood is equal parts red and whiskey. She needs a little longer to grow up again. To remember that she’s not twenty-seven anymore. To remember she isn’t alone.

  
She stays there until she hears the sound of a car approaching, and she’s prepared to bet her top shelf ass that it’s the well-adjusted, family-oriented, mostly law-abiding, perfect Sheriff Haught coming to drag her home until she’s sober enough to face Doc and Alice.

— really just Alice.

  
The car comes to a stop. A door opens and closes. Footsteps approach until the overcast sun that had been casting warmth across her face is obscured by a form leaning over her.

  
“This seat taken?”

  
Her eyes snap open.

  
Because it isn’t Nicole. It isn’t even Waverly or Doc or Dolls.

  
It’s Jeremy.

  
He doesn’t wait for a response and settles onto the ground beside her, lying down and crossing his arms over his chest. He wiggles a bit in the dirt as if that will somehow make it more comfortable.

  
“This is nice,” he says, and she knows it’s sarcastic even if there isn’t a trace of sarcasm in his tone.

  
She still doesn’t say anything. She wants him to go away. She wants to be left alone.

 

(She wants him to stay. Please stay.)

 

“Good day to hide away on the outskirts of town. It’s quiet. Peaceful, even. Could maybe use a throw pillow or two. Some mood music. Maybe a nice eucalyptus and mint candle. Or lavender. Lavender is nice and relaxing.”

  
Wynonna squeezes her eyes shut and counts to five before opening her mouth. “It was peaceful until you showed up and started jabbering,” she snaps. So much for counting to keep calm. “What are you doing here, Jeremy?”

  
She senses it rather than sees it — the shrug of his shoulders. “You’re sad. Hurting. I could feel it in my—”

  
Wynonna rolls over onto her side and props herself up on her elbow, holding up a finger to stop him from continuing his sentence. “Do not say ‘groin’, Chetri, or I swear to god that I will make as many vag and boob jokes as I possibly can for the next week.”

  
He doesn’t continue and she flops onto her back, staring steadfastly into the clouds.

  
Seconds pass. Then minutes. Jeremy stays. He stays until she’s ready.

  
“Buy me a drink at Shorty’s?”

  
“We pretty much drink for free there.”

  
She sits up, drawing her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. “It’s the thought that counts,” she says with her own shrug.

  
He pushes himself into a sitting position that mirrors hers, albeit far less gracefully. “Do I have to drink whiskey?”

  
Wynonna stares at him. “No, Jeremy. You don’t have to drink whiskey. You can drink your gross banana liqueur or whatever fruity cocktail that Waverly makes you.”

  
“I’m in!” He says it with as much enthusiasm as the girls express when Doc tells them they can have cookies and ice cream for dinner. She grins — just a little grin — at the thought as she stands, wiping at the dirt and dust that clings to her jeans.

  
“Meet you there,” she tells him, lifting the tailgate of the pickup and circling back towards the cab.

  
“Of course!” Jeremy clambers to his feet and starts towards his Prius before turning to face her with a questioning look. “Are you okay to drive?”

  
She grins a little wider as her mood shifts to something a little more good-natured. “I’m an Earp. We learn to drive drunk before we learn to drive sober.”

  
He nods slowly, still standing in one spot as she yanks open the driver’s side door.

  
“Hey, Wynonna?” he says.

  
She stops with one hand on the truck’s frame. “What, Jeremy?”

  
He looks at her with such genuine kindness and honesty and _love._

  
“You aren’t alone. I know it’s easy to forget sometimes, but you aren’t alone.”

  
Tears prick at the corners of her eyes and she purses her lips and nods once. Twice. She swallows around a lump in her throat. Her next words are soft, a whisper on the wind. “Yeah, uh. Thanks, Chetri.” Wynonna shakes her head. “Thanks, Jeremy.”

  
He smiles at her, unassuming and with unconditional love in his eyes. “Anytime, Wynonna.”

  
When she slides back into the cab of the truck and settles behind the wheel, she feels her years return to her. With them come reminders of family and friendship and love and belonging. Because even though she hasn’t been able to save everybody, even though she’s made mistakes and hurt the ones she loves, she’s still here. She remembers what Waverly had recited to her after Jolene.

  
She’s here. She stayed. She stays and she loves them back and she never gives up on them, even when she’s ready to give up on herself. She loves them and she fights for them.

 

Always.

 

-

 

 _we meet in the streets_  
_will we meet in the bar's cold light?_  
_we grip at our hands_  
_we hold just a little tight_  
_\- 'after the bombs' by the decemberists_

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I've been feeling really shitty today and so I wanted to write something for all of you. Thank you again to all the folks that take the time to leave kudos and comments. I truly do appreciate them and I read them more than once. You're lovely people.


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